Of a certain clerk.
IT happened once in a town which is called Enfield that the animals perished of a dire and sudden pestilence, which pestilence, either spreading from the tainting of the air, or -- as we rather believe -- inflicted from heaven for a reproof of men, had brought great losses also upon the inhabitants in adjoining villages. There was among them a certain clerk, a lover of equity and truth, who by like misfortune had suffered a similar loss. In fact, nine oxen of his had already died by contagion of that dire pestilence and his one heifer alone remaining lay on the threshold awaiting a like fate to the rest. And when the clerk considered the matter, he said --
"Behold! as our sins require, the severity of heavenly wrath has come upon us, and the animals which were created for the use of men perish on all sides by a sudden death. It remains for us to give thanks between our scourgings, in that the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, as it pleased the Lord so it has been done, blessed be the Name of the Lord. But in order that the Lord may turn away His overflowing scourge from us, and this pestilence may no more in future touch our boundaries, I devote the heifer, which alone is still left to me, if it survive, to be sent to the church of the most blessed apostle Bartholomew, so that by his glorious prayers the aspect of divine indignation may be averted from us. But if it also die, I will have the price of its hide and flesh, when sold, sent to the same church."
Meanwhile a dealer was at hand with whom the said clerk, thinking the heifer could not escape the peril of death, began to treat for its sale, desiring to receive the price for it. And while they were debating together, the heifer arose sound and began to eat of the hay that was set beside her. Which when the clerk perceived he straightway paid his vow and sent off the heifer to the aforesaid church, being made more eager by hope because the Lord by the merits of the glorious apostle had accepted his vow and his prayer.
The Book of the Foundation of St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield Rendered into Modern English from the original Latin version preserved in the British Museum, numbered Vespasian B. IX, by Mr. Humphrey H. King and Mr. William Barnard for use in the Records of St. Bartholomew's Priory by E.A. Webb. |
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